text:
The Seer of Pakistan
By Ali Sethi
In the south of Pakistan, where Hindus have lately been kidnapped for ransom and their daughters forcibly converted to Islam, Hindu families have started fleeing to India in trains. As they waved to their relatives from train windows, possibly for the last time, many Hindu girls contorted their faces and wept. To the north, near an industrial city, policemen poured paint over Koranic verses inscribed on Ahmadi graves. This is because Ahmadis have no right to Koranic verses in Pakistan: the law classifies them as non-Muslims and the media regularly portrays them as treacherous deviants from the faith. Still higher up, in a scenic mountain valley, Shias were pulled out of buses, lined up and shot dead by gunmen who may or may not belong to one of Pakistan's many banned sectarian outfits. And just two weeks ago, not far from the pristine capital, a mob of a hundred and fifty Muslims ran after a mentally handicapped, low-caste Christian girl, wanting to burn her alive for having held in her hand—this was the rumor in her neighborhood—a singed Islamic manual.
In the rest of the country, the end of Ramadan was celebrated with the usual fanfare, show of color, and generosity of spirit.
The hysterical synchronicity of these happenings is typical of the Pakistan encountered nowadays in the news. It is also Manto-esque, which is to say that it feels like it could have been imagined, in exactly these tones, with just such a flatly ironic counterpoint for an ending, more than fifty years ago by a man called Saadat Hassan Manto, the writer whose centennial is being marked this year in Lahore amid an unshakeable and vaguely shaming sense of déjà vu.
In May, for instance, in a darkened auditorium in Lahore, two actors stood on a spotlit stage and read out Manto's "Dekh Kabira Roya" ("Kabir Saw and Wept"), a story he wrote soon after Pakistan's creation. It shows the medieval Indian poet Kabir, a sayer of contrary things, freakishly transplanted in the streets of a "newly independent state." Kabir is still in the Indian subcontinent (people have castes here), though it is now the middle of the twentieth century (intellectuals are arguing about Stalin). All around him citizens are excitedly going about the implementation of new laws. Only Kabir is "grief-stricken"; he bursts into tears when he sees, on the top of a building, a desecrated statue of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi (it has been bound up in jute fiber because the religion in the new state forbids idolatry), and again when he hears a general urging his troops to "fight the enemy on empty stomachs." Elsewhere in the new state, people are listening to sermons about the importance of beards and veils, while prostitutes with "ravaged and anxiety-ridden faces" ponder a new law that requires them to find husbands in thirty days.
Kabir moves between these scenes, crying all the while.
A religious leader says to him, 'Why do you weep, my good man?'
Kabir—his medieval contrariness has been transformed in these circumstances into a kind of innocence—wants to know how the prostitutes will ever find husbands.
And the religious leader, who is a creature of the state and has a working knowledge of its laws, laughs because "it was the funniest thing he had ever heard."
Around me in the darkened auditorium I heard sighs and whispers and even a few gasps. They expressed several things at once: the audience's mortified recognition of the "newly independent state"; a wearied familiarity with the weeping Kabir; and amazement that Manto, writing all those years ago, had pointed out the very features—the warlike generals and fire-breathing mullahs and rampaging vigilantes—that have come to stand for the sorry state of Pakistan.
On my way out I heard a bewildered man say to his companion, "But it was like he could see the future…."
And it was this feeling, hard to resist in a time of widespread social unease, that sent me looking in Manto's work for signs of a seer.
He was born in 1912 in the prospering northwestern state of Punjab, then a valued frontier and "bread basket" of British India. Saadat was the son of a Muslim barrister, an "extremely harsh" father, and his second wife, a woman "with a very tender heart." In "Manto on Manto," 11 a characteristically broken-sounding, underhanded assault on his own literary reputation, Manto describes his urge to write as nothing more than "a result of the clash" between his parents. The Manto scholar Leslie Flemming agrees: his father was "the symbol of authority against which Manto continued thereafter to rebel."22
There was also Amritsar, Manto's home city, then a hub of mutinous activities. It was here, in the spring of 1919, when Saadat was seven years old, that a British general had opened fire on some twenty thousand Indians gathered in a public garden, an act that roused anti-imperialists across the land and hastened India's march to independence from British rule. In this gaseous atmosphere Manto came of age: a memoir of that time shows him hanging out with a group of "armchair revolutionary" friends and putting up posters on the city walls with "screaming headlines" ("Autocratic and Oppressive Rulers Meet Their Well-Deserved Fate") lifted from "one of Oscar Wilde's inferior plays." (And this is one indication of the influence that European developments, literary and political, already had on the ferment in India.)
For the next few years, Manto revelled in the excitements of the age. His stint at Aligarh Muslim University, in the mid-nineteen-thirties, had him falling in with the Progressive Writers' Association, whose aim was to overhaul the whole of Indian literature. The Indian canon in their view was insular and passive, a remnant of long-vanished courts; it should now give way to a literature that "looks at the fundamental problems of our life." In some of his early stories we find Manto dabbling in the usual Progressive themes (the brutality of the colonial state, the "flushed faces" of student radicals). But his taste for unromantic ironies and surprise endings, and his broad identification with the condemned, were to lead him away from the Progressives' camp. "Bu" ("Odor"), a story Manto wrote in the early forties, is emblematic of this shift. It shows a chance sexual encounter between Randhir, a rich young man who is bored with sex, and a rain-drenched working-class girl who takes shelter one night in his Bombay apartment. Randhir asks the girl to change out of her wet clothes; a button on her blouse gets stuck; he tries to help her undo it, and ends up touching her breasts, which come "trembling into view." They fuck. Randhir is transfixed by the girl's smell, which is both "unpleasant and pleasant"; he seeks it "in her armpits, her hair, her breasts and navel and every other part of her body…." Later, when he has been restored to his secure and sensationless life, Randhir can't get over that smell, which reminds him of the monsoon ("the raindrops were flushing the stars of their milky light") and that night of sexual ecstasies. The story's last scene shows him sitting beside his new bride, "the daughter of a magistrate, a graduate, the heartthrob of the boys of her college," an ideal woman who has nevertheless "failed to kindle his masculine interest."
"Bu" is hauntingly atmospheric, the sex in it a matter of merge-and-release, a miracle of communication (Randhir and the girl talk only through their "eloquent" panting and "expressive" use of hands and lips), even an intimation of divine oneness: at one point the two are "like a little bird that soars into the blueness of the sky, higher and higher, until it becomes a motionless dot." From this state there can only be a comedown: Randhir returns to his social reality (does it not feel, after his recent flight, like a socially constructed _un_reality, the very opposite of what is primal and true?) and finds himself trapped in a marriage to a woman of his own class, a carefully chosen, socially coördinated wife. In this well-made bed, Randhir is condemned to remember and regret.
But in nineteen-forties India, "Bu"'s subtleties fell on many deaf ears. In Lahore Manto was charged with a British-colonial law for "obscenity" and summoned to court. And within the Progressive Writers' Association, his story was read in narrowly political terms: while some writers praised Manto—wrong-headedly—for exposing the licentiousness of the upper classes, others scorned him for dwelling indulgently on the subject, so that his story was "a waste of the writer's and reader's time" and was "as much an expression of escape from the most important demands of life as old fashioned reactionism."
Mercifully, India was still big enough, and Manto's place in it small enough, for such judgments not to matter, at least not for long: in the years between Aligarh and the court trial for "Bu," Manto had got married, become a father, and found a job as a scriptwriter in Bombay. This was Manto's favorite city, a place where he could, as he later wrote, "be happy … on two pennies a day or on ten thousand rupees a day," where he could "live on the footpath or in a magnificent palace"; it didn't matter in Bombay—no one would "subject" him here "to moralizing." In Bombay's seedy-shiny film world, surrounded by the chatter of the demimonde and the stacked-up pages of film scripts, a bottle of Deer Brand Whisky well within his reach, Saadat and his stories felt right at home.
But the partitioning of India, in 1947, would end that feeling for good.
Manto was in Bombay when he heard the news about Pakistan: the British, quitting India at last, had decided in their haste to let the Muslim-majority regions in the east and west become a separate country. To a man like Manto—a Muslim who grew up in Sikhism's holiest city, who derived his livelihood from the cosmopolitan film business and had many Hindu friends—this religious designation of a landmass must have seemed unreal. "Where were they going to inter the bones that had been stripped of the flesh of religion by vultures and birds of prey?" Manto would ask later, and not wholly rhetorically, recalling the plunder and flag-waving and killing that had broken out all around him. "Now that we were free, had subjection ceased to exist? Who would be our slaves? Thousands of Hindus and Muslims were dying all around us. Why were they dying?"
The answers were distressingly near. Even in Bombay, now a part of "secular" India, "the communal atmosphere was becoming more vicious by the day." At the Bombay Talkies film studio where Manto was employed, Hindu staffers began sending anonymous letters to the management, demanding the removal of Muslims from high posts and threatening "everything from murder to the destruction of the studio." Manto, suddenly a Muslim among Hindus, panicked. He "stopped going to Bombay Talkies." He "began to drink heavily" and "all day long" would "lie on [his] sofa in a sort of daze."
Much has been made of Manto's decision in that difficult hour to flee to Pakistan. His friend Ismat Chughtai, herself a Muslim writer and self-avowed progressive who stayed on in India, saw in it a proof of Manto's opportunism. She quotes him as saying that "the future looks beautiful in Pakistan" because Muslim migrants could now "get the houses of people who've fled from there." But once in Lahore, now Pakistan, Manto was inconsolable. "Despite my best efforts," he writes, "I could not dissociate India from Pakistan and Pakistan from India." What was such a writer—one who saw maddening continuities where borders had been drawn—to do?
He could begin by putting down his most immediate impressions of the partition violence. "Siyah Hashiye" ("Black Margins"), published in October, 1948, is a collection of "sketches," some as short as a paragraph: in "Jelly," a murdered ice vendor's blood has merged on the road with ice melted from his pushcart, and a child who drives past it in a horse-carriage mistakes it for jelly. In "Warning," a rich man is dragged out of his house by a mob and kicked to the ground. The mob is about to kill him when the man gets up, removes the dust from his clothes "with great dignity" and "wagging a finger at the rioters" says, "You can kill me, but I am warning you, don't you dare touch my money!" In "The Garland," another mob, this one in Lahore, frantically descends on the statue of a Hindu philanthropist (Hindus began to flee Lahore as soon as it was "given" to Pakistan). One of the rioters is about to place a garland of shoes around the statue's neck when he is shot by police and taken to the hospital—a hospital built by the same Hindu philanthropist. And this is what happens in "Modesty":
The rioters brought the train to a stop. Those who belonged to the other religion were methodically picked out and slaughtered. After it was all over, those who remained were treated to a feast of milk, custard pies and fresh fruit.
Before the train moved off, the leader of the assassins made a small farewell speech: "Dear brothers and sisters, since we were not sure about the time of your train's arrival, regretfully we were not able to offer you anything better than this most modest hospitality. We would have liked to have done more."
That is all there is: murder—methodical and quick—followed by a feast and an ingratiating speech. Note the withholding of tags: we don't know the location of the massacre or the religion of the killers. All we have is a spurt of base instincts. (Including false modesty, present even in carnage.) Though "Modesty" is unrelated in plot or sequence to the other sketches in "Siyah Hashiye," it fits in the whole—like a snapshot in a slide show. Taken one at a time, these sketches enact the speed, randomness, and anonymity of the partition violence; cumulatively they expose the partition—the coming-into-being of two flag-waving nation-states—as little more than an orgy of loot and blood. Manto's eye for irony here is sharp as ever. And the fragmented feel of his "sketches" represents a formal breakthrough—Manto has blasted away the conventions of the short story and arrived at a jagged approximation of the partition trauma.
But the timing of "Siyah Hashiye" was off. The literary scene in Pakistan had already broken down into factions: on one side were the progressive writers, now taking cues from the Soviet Union and calling for a socialist reform of the new state, which was the project of "a few reactionaries, capitalists and feudal landlords"33; and on the other side were "liberal" writers who disdained "Art for the sake of the Party" and were more inclined to peddle the idea of a fragile and imperiled new state in need of "nation-building." In such a fight, of what use were Manto's writings, which offered Pakistan neither a Communist cure nor a patriotic facelift?
He was punished. The progressives called "Siyah Hashiye" reactionary; Manto responded by saying that he didn't "care at all about 'Progressivism.'" His next story about the partition, titled "Thanda Gosht" ("Cold Flesh"), was even more unmindful of the literary temperature: Ishwar Singh, a Sikh recently returned from a round of partition killing, can't bring himself to make love to his mistress. The mistress suspects him of infidelity—why else can't he get it up? In a fit of jealousy she stabs Ishwar Singh with his own dagger. Bleeding to death, Ishwar Singh admits that he tried to rape an unconscious Muslim girl, only to find her already dead (the "cold flesh" of the title). While it makes some literary stabs (death as contagion, etc.), "Thanda Gosht" is, ultimately, a racy little thing, relying on that last shocking detail for effect—and may well live up to a charge of sensationalism.
But in Pakistan the charge brought against "Thanda Gosht" was much more serious. A local bureaucrat named Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain, "one of Manto's old tormentors," took the story to mean that "we Muslims are so utterly without a sense of honor that Sikhs can rape even our dead daughters."
Manto was back in the dock.
A protracted court trial in Lahore had him worrying about the punishment, which came to three years in jail and a fine of three hundred rupees. Manto appealed the verdict. Eventually, after a lot of worrying (and drinking), he was let off the hook by a judge who wore a conspicuously Islamic beard. ("If I sentence Saadat Hassan Manto," the judge had said with a Manto-esque smile, "he will go around telling everyone that he was sentenced by a man with a beard.")
Manto now found himself in the singularly unfortunate position of being branded a "progressive" by the state and a "reactionary" by the progressives. In an essay written at this time and addressed to his readers, Manto admits to feeling "a strange melancholy." He had "rebelled against the great upheaval that the partition of the country caused" and recovered from that "sea of blood" some "pearls of regret." (He means his partition stories.) But these pearls had found no place in Pakistan. Manto the writer had suffered, but so had Manto the man: "My present life is full of hardship. After working day and night, I barely make enough to fulfill my daily needs. The fear that keeps gnawing at me is that were I to die suddenly who will look after my wife and three little daughters?"
There was in Pakistan at this time at least one remaining source of reassurance for such a writer. About to lock the unstable new state into a Cold War alliance, the U.S. was looking for well-disposed Pakistani writers to help realize its earliest projections of soft power. Manto seems to have come into America's sights for his attack on the progressive writers. One day he was visited by a man from the U.S. Embassy who offered him five hundred rupees for one of his stories. (The going rate was fifty.) Startled, Manto told the American he wrote in Urdu and not in English. But the American said he needed the story in Urdu "because we have a journal that is published in the Urdu language." Manto insisted on taking no more than three hundred rupees and told the American that what he wrote would "not be to your liking, nor will I give you the right to make changes." The American never went back to Manto for the story. Nevertheless, Manto fulfilled his pledge, however creatively: in place of the story he produced a "Letter to Uncle Sam." In this letter Manto uses the voice of an "obedient nephew" writing to his "Most Respected Uncle," cleverly mimicking the formalities of a traditional adult-child and, by implication, patron-client relationship. In between gauche-sounding, plausibly nephew-like admissions ("I can never understand why so many of your people wear glasses") and horny asides ("Uncle, your women are so beautiful"), Manto makes a statement such as this: "As long as Pakistan needs wheat, I cannot be impertinent with you." The resulting letter has a curiously menacing feel, like a cartoon that flares repeatedly into lifelike horror. In this way, in the course of just a few pages, Manto draws attention not only to the enforced nature of his performance but also to what lurks around it: the exploitative and toxic relationship between master and slave.
In subsequent letters this discordance becomes more audible: Manto's fourth "Letter to Uncle Sam," written in February 1954, has him brashly telling Uncle that his "admiration and respect for you are going up at about the same rate as your progress towards a decision to grant military aid to Pakistan." The nephew then gives Uncle Sam some earnest advice: "[You] must sign a military pact with Pakistan because you are seriously concerned about the stability of the world's largest Islamic state, since our mullah is the best antidote to Russian communism. Once military aid starts flowing, the first people you should arm are these mullahs." And then, a few lines later, the nephew looks Uncle Sam in the eye: "I think the only purpose of military aid is to arm these mullahs. I am your Pakistani nephew and I know your moves. Everyone can now become a smart ass, thanks to your style of playing politics."
It is worth noting that in 1954 America's romance with Pakistan was only just getting started. U.S. funding of Pakistani jihadis was still two decades away, the blowback from that cynical move and the breakdown of U.S.-Pakistan relations another five decades into the future. But Manto had put his finger to the wind and sensed the coming disaster. Or so it seems to us today. The fact is that when he wrote his prophetic letters to Uncle Sam, Manto was already an alcoholic. ("Had this whiskey been distilled in your country," he told Uncle Sam, "you would have destroyed the distillery with an atom bomb….") To recover his senses he was sent again and again to the local sanatorium.
But even in this last bleary phase of his life, Manto remained himself: unable to abide by any constitution, least of all his own, a compulsive ironic. It was these faculties—he might have called them his tics—that had throughout made him undermine conventional narratives, but creatively, so that in effect he seemed to have mined those narratives for hard truths. Often this method failed, as in his supercilious stories. But just as often it struck gold. Indeed, many of the reigning narratives of Manto's time—the "two-nation theory" that eternally separates India from Pakistan, the Soviet-style Communism of the progressive writers, the pacts of mutual interest between America and Pakistan—have now fallen apart in ways that make Manto's mockeries of them sound extra-worldly.
This is not to deny the power of Manto's vision. His seeing, despite censure from ideologues, in the partition violence of 1947 the rapid breakdown of a social contract—something that was "not an aberration"44 in the region's history, and not a matter of "politics" alone—was indeed visionary, and makes him a writer of special interest for anyone who cares about Pakistan, where so many forms of random-seeming violence now crowd the news. (A good introduction for English-speaking readers is "Kingdom's End," a selection of Manto's stories translated by Khalid Hasan.)
A little before his death, in 1955, Manto had worried—it is hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic as usual—that the Pakistani government might one day "find itself pleased with me and place a medal on my coffin, which would be a great insult to my commitment to what I believe in."
This month, on the occasion of Pakistan's sixty-fifth birthday, in the year of Manto's hundredth, the Pakistani government did just that: after years of neglect and denial, it gave in to a Manto-esque irony and awarded him the Nishan-e-Imtiaz ("Sign of Distinction") medal.
1. This and other essays appear in "Manto," a recent selection of his writings edited by his niece and daughter.
2. See Leslie Flemming's brisk and informative "Another Lonely Voice: The Urdu Short Stories of Saadat Hassan Manto."
3. For more on these debates, see Saadia Toor's "The State of Islam."
4. An interview with Manto's niece, the Tufts historian Ayesha Jalal.
Ali Sethi is the author of "The Wish Maker," a novel.
Illustration by Jashar Awan.
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This is a new thread for continuation of the Brexit thread, as that thread was getting rather long.
Just think what it would be like if we had chaos under Ed Miliband.
Could we perhaps just settle for chaos under a government? Which, at the moment, in our case, we have not got.
The chaos is still working even in the Easter recess.
Hunt seems to think Brexit will be done and dusted before the Euro elections!
Brexit has excited the long-dormant Irish republican in me, and that has led to some posts expressing anti-English views. I'm sorry I did that, and I do hope that the UK can sort things out so that ordinary people don't suffer. I'm sorry I am such an arse sometimes.
That probably means that nationalist sentiments have been excited North and South in Ireland. As to how that will manifest itself, my lips are sealed.
the extremist wing of the IRA has already done some minor terrorist acts in Derry I think. But hopefully things will sort themselves out and the horrors can go back to sleep. Like Billy Bragg, I want Belfast to continue being just another northern industrial town.
Nancy Pelosi has said that any US-UK trade deal will have troubles if Brexit means a watering down of the GFA. Good on her. The Brexiteers have to be made realise that their antics will have a wide and long lasting effect.
We need to talk about Farage.
In one particular domain he has been (and remains) very effective. European elections.
Current polling suggests that his 'Brexit Party' might top the polling. Time to get organised me thinks.
2) There appear to be some major issues with the Brexit Party's fundraising - I am being careful to not repeat the detailed accusations here because of the Ship's necessarily cautious approach to such things.
The thing is, the above should disqualify him from holding any office. Even if not legally, then at the ballot box. However, he knows what he's doing and he's doing it rather well.
A win for the Brexit Party would be very a powerful weapon in preventing a People's Vote.
Now is the time for the real fightback - Remainers must find a way of out-voting Brexit. I think Labour probably needs to take a lead here.
One thing gives me hope though; Farage's success with UKIP was to a large extent built on low turn-outs. This time pro-Europeans are energised as never before; turnout is going to be higher.
All opinion pollsters work hard to correct the raw data on the basis of likelihood to vote. Getting this right is very tricky and this is most-often the reasons why polls are not as precise as they might be. I haven't looked at the detailed reports on these yet but I wonder if it really is just a reflection on who's most likely to turn up on polling day?
Well said, AFZ! I find the reports of Farage's projected success very alarming, and I don't even live there any more.
Unfortunately there is no single, easily identifiable 'ticket' for remain supporters to vote for.
Which is why I said petitions and a million marchers are not much good in and of themselves.
The Labour Party should be that ticket.
The Labour MEPs are - as far as I can tell- a sound bunch. I will probably be voting Labour. On social media, there are a lot of Remainers who care passionately who will not vote Labour unless the party becomes unequivocally pro-Remain or pro-PV.
I understand that. There's a lot of anger that various pro-Leave advocates keep quoting the Labour vote in 2017 as 'votes in favour of leaving.' That is a complete misrepresentation of many (most?) of us who voted Labour in 2017.
The Labour leadership needs to be convinced that there is both a moral and an electoral-calculus reason for becoming a clearly pro-Remain (or Pro-PV) party in this election. Those who think that Corbyn is simply anti-EU are not paying attention, in my view. His views are complex and nuanced and whilst I have no doubt that ultimately Labour can only lose if it doesn't do more to stop Brexit, many Remainers are blind to the other constituency of people who voted Leave and expect Labour to listen to them as well. Ulitmately Corbyn is a democrat and he doesn't seem to be able to set-aside the 2016 referendum as easily as some of us. He may well be right on this point.
I think the direction of travel in the Labour leadership is clear but the timing is critical. I think Labour needs to be clearly in favour of a PV before May 22nd.
Conversely, whilst I personally wish Labour had been more anti-Brexit all along, the key here is winning a PV and that means changing minds; you don't do that by telling people they're stupid or wrong or that you think they should be ignored. Labour needs to do 2 things; it needs to become more anti-EU, but it also needs to take people with it.
This is the moment, me thinks.
Yes, I just read an article in the Guardian enthusing about Tiggers, and I felt mildly nauseous. The best plan is to beat Farage, isn't it? I don't see how voting for a small party does that. But I haven't seen a list of candidates, or the last result.
We still need to see what goes into the manifesto for each party. Some will stand on revoking Article 50, others on a referendum between Remain and whatever deal Parliament approves with a commitment to campaign for remain. Remain supporters will probably split between those positions; I expect having a referendum will be the more popular remain position. But, it's a PR election, so there's scope for people to vote as they want, with several parties with slightly different positions on the remain side. In terms of relating the vote to support for remaining, the complicating factor will probably be the Labour Party position - does their manifesto come down on favouring remaining or leaving, or staying on the fence? Labour are almost certain to favour a referendum, but will they then commit to one side or the other in referendum campaigning?
At the other end, there's also going to be various positions for leaving. Some parties wanting an immediate hard Brexit, others wanting to get a deal through as soon as possible. Some pro-leave parties may decide that if elected they won't take their seats, others will probably take the seats and salaries ... whether they'll engage in Parliament is another question.
I am a Remainer and do think a PV was s a good choice. However it is not a magic bullet for remain.
I am not sure Farage will do that well in the election. They are a one position party. We are not voting totally on Brexit.
Well, Farage is leading at the moment in the polls. As I said, I don't see how voting for a small party will beat them.
The advantage of a PR election is that you're not trying to unite the electorate behind a "anyone but X" candidate. It looks like Farage will get some seats, the only way to prevent that if the polls are even vaguely accurate is to convince those considering voting for the Brexit party to either stay at home or vote for another party - and, I'd be opposed to discouraging people from voting, even for fascists. We can reduce the number of seats they get by getting everyone else out to vote for someone else, whatever party that's for (though voting for a party where those votes are likely to push them over the threshold to get a seat would be better). Where you cast your vote will also depend on whatever else the parties are campaigning on; you want to get MEPs who will not only turn up but will then work for the things you're most concerned over (which will need us to see the manifestos).
As far as I can see in my part of London, it will be a straight fight between Labour and Farage. Of course, this is not true everywhere. I would rather eat the carpet, than vote for the Tiggers.
Ulitmately Corbyn is a democrat and he doesn't seem to be able to set-aside the 2016 referendum as easily as some of us. He may well be right on this point.
He had no objection when May set aside the 2015 general election.
Farage may be leading in the polls, but if the Brexit Party is to get any MPs elected it will have to get some candidates. If they are anything like the candidates UKIP has put up over the years they will be more disreputable, lazy and downright nasty than Farage. It really shouldn't be hard to find genuine "knocking copy" for most of them.
In any event, the principle has to be to keep the Tories and Farage out, which will mean voting for the party most likely to beat them, be they Labour, SNP, LibDem, Green or Plaid Cymru. Many will have to hold their nose when voting but it is vital to keep these bastards out.
Polls are one thing voting is another. I think there are too many people who would vote to remain or to have a PV to let his party get many seats. If the march is anything to go by he could be in trouble.
Farage understands how to Get Out The Vote in ways Remainers have consistently failed to.
Farage is the Prince of Darkness. But Shakespeare was wrong: he is no gentleman.
The advantage of a PR election is that you're not trying to unite the electorate behind a "anyone but X" candidate.
D'Hondt tends to favor larger parties/coalitions over many smaller parties, especially in regions of the size used in the UK mainland, at the point at which one of the Brexit parties start to run away in the polls it starts to pay to vote tactically.
And if the idea is to use the euro-elections as a sort of opinion poll, then that would imply a lack of respect towards the European institutions which is surely at odds with support for the EU.
I think if you don't believe the UK should have a presence in the European Parliament, it's rational, although not very nice, to elect 'wrecking' candidates. Similar in some (not all) respects to Irish nationalists electing Sinn Féin MPs.
If you are hoping that UK MEPs will serve their full five-year term, after the successful resolution of a People's Vote, then it would be more sensible to elect MEPs who will actually advance what you believe to believe to be the correct direction for Europe over those five years.


text:
An interesting observation on Quire 13
david > 30-03-2016, 07:41 PM
I am continuing with my investigations but have decided to share this post in order to get feedback, as I think it's a very interesting observation.
I have been closely looking at Quire 13 (the balneological section) and something occured to me.
As part of the foliation task, I was examining You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f81r. These two folios are part of the same sheet of parchment (a bifolio), but have other sheets sewn in above them. Just like a newspaper.
It You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that the bifolio was drawn as one complete page, and as such it should have been the centrepiece of the bifolio. So that when you open the quire, you see both pages together in all their glory.
I'm going to take this one step further and say:
All the bifolios in this quire have been drawn as complete entities.
In other words, each bifolio seems to have been drawn without taking into consideration that they would be sewn into a quire - each bifolio has unique graphic elements that aren't seen on other bifolios. They're independent of each other, as if each bifolio were telling a story, albeit all on the same general theme.
To see this, I printed them all off as bifolios. In fact, that's how I noticed this. So one sheet of A4 had 78v & 81r on one side, 81v and 78r on the back. Just like the real manuscript. If you don't have the printed copies to hand, use the Voynich Ninja page comparision tool You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
What you will notice when browsing is that each bifolio contain the same graphic imagery unique to that bifolio.
Remember, these bifoloios are two pages on one sheet of parchment. Just like a newspaper. You have your left hand side and your right hand side - the sheets of newspaper are laid on top of one another and stapled in the middle. So whilst one side of the sheet might have domestic news, the other side will be in a different section, say cooking.
Here's a layout of Quire 13, courtesy of ReneZ's website:
Let's take it from the bottom. After each analysis I add a brief summary of the unique features which link the individual pages of each bifolio.
f75 and f84 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Both folios share the same types of bathing pools. These pools have no walls or borders around them, making them visually distinct from 78-81, the only other bifolio where bathing pools appear. Furthermore, the nymps on these four pages are active, painted in different positions and facing one another. The 78-87 bifolio nymphs are all static, mainly facing in long rows and holding hands, the very antithesis to the nymphs on this bifolio. And here we have larger nymphs in these pools who seem to be some sort of central matriachal figure, unlike the 78-87 bifolio where all are the same sized. All the pools of water are connected downwards, and all four top pools have different decorations above the pools of water.
- The types of pool, the graphical imagery depicting the flow of water, the types of nymphs and their positions are unique to these four pages.
f76 and f83 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the only text only page. The other three folios share common graphical traits. The nymphs appear alone, always standing in the mouth of a pipe (with two exceptions, at the top of 84r), sometimes holding objects. All of these pipes have a layered inverted pyramid underneath, and there is a strong motif of water "droplets" being You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.from pipes which occurs nowhere else (the water droplets sprayed on 77v/r are draw in a different fashion as rows of dots and lines -You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). The pipes are not connected to one another. The rainbow on 83r and bulbs on 83v are unique in this section. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. does depict three nymphs putting their hands into tubs in a similar fashion to that of 82.
-Nymphs stand in pipes, sometimes holding objects. All stands have inverted layered pyramids with a strong motif of water droplets being sprayed.
f77 & f82 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Three of the pages are unique in having "pipes" connecting nymphs as headers. The fourth, f82r, continues with nymphs. Whilst there are pools of water on 82r/v, these are very different beasts from those on 78-87 or 75-84, in asmuch as they have no defined borders, and the nymphs are either scattered around the sides or standing on pipes. Around all four pages are individual nymphs standing not in pipes but in bowls. All individual nymphs have their hands inside pipes with one exception (82r centre right, lying down). f82 has a rip in the bottom which was originally sewn up and has since lost its thread - from the way the paint covers the rip (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) I wonder if the rip happened after the original painting was done? Further study required here.
- This bifolio has unique individual stands for the nymphs, and all (excepting one) individual nymphs have their hands in pipes. Three of the headers are of pipes connecting nymphs.
78 & 81 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). there is a clear connection between You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and 81r - the built up swimming pool on 78v connects to the two baths on 81r. But there is an additional link - the bath on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has a link to the bath on f81v. Note the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which logically connects on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. And we can connect this with the master bath on 78r - note the bottom bath has an You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.and the bath opposite has an inlet which starts in the middle of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. All six baths are linked, albeit in a reverse order to the logical reading of the page (top right to bottom left, then left to right on the reverse). All the nymphs in the baths are also unique - there is no clear matriach, and they are all linked in groups, holding hands in groups of 3,4,5,6,7. All of the baths appear to be elevated swimming pools with the exception of the two on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which have no walls - but they do have the same stylised border running around the water which would indicate the top of wall. Maybe space limitations? (the page is very text heavy).
- All the pools on this bifolio are linked, from top left to right, the to the reverse left to right. The style of the pools is unique to this bifolio, as are the positions of the nymphs.
79 & 80 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Again we have a unique imagery theme which links all the folios. There are individual (or small groupings) of nymphs in basins who drip water onto the basins below, until eventually the water reaches irregular pools (no attempts at depicting walls) in which nymphs and animals frolic. Most of the pools are green, but two pools include duos of nymphs touching each other (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and the water is blue in these examples, which may be medical in nature. There are duality of nymphs interacting on all of the pages. Top right of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there appears to be a man chasing a woman. Animals appear in one of the folios.
- The pipes and basins connecting nymphs are unique to this bifolio. There are duos of nymphs interacting in an assertive/submissive fashion and when they appear in pools the water is a unique colour of blue. There appears to be a hierarchy of flowing water.
I think it is clear that each bifolio is to be taken as whole, instead of individual pages to be read in order. It is too early to draw any conclusions from this, but one possibility is that the scribe wanted to draw more foldout pages, but instead continued with the bifolio model.
RE: An interesting observation on Quire 13
VViews > 30-03-2016, 07:58 PM
this is very interesting indeed, but why put it here instead of adding it to the foliation task Q13 thread?
Because I don't yet know how it fits into the foliation task.
Indeed, if accepted by consensus, this would make the proposed reordering of Q13 moot, as it turns the 78-81 from being a centerfold to just being the most obvious of them all.
(30-03-2016, 08:20 PM)david Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Indeed, if accepted by consensus, this would make the proposed reordering of Q13 moot, as it turns the 78-81 from being a centerfold to just being the most obvious of them all.
I should start by saying that I am entirely open to the possibility that your proposition about each bifolio having internal coherence and telling a sort of mini-story within the balneo section, may be correct.
However this in itself is a reordering, as it is different from the order in which the folios presently appear.
Furthermore, even in the scenario you describe, there must be a first bifolio to the "balneo section", and therefore ordering is not moot at all.
Which bifolio was placed first? 76-83 makes the most sense to me, because 76r is the only text-only page. It would appear as a good intro to the section, whichever way we believe the rest of it is organized.
Or are you suggesting that these were never meant to be bound together with the rest of the manuscript, but that each bifolio was meant as an entirely standalone sort of pamphlet?
Sam G > 31-03-2016, 09:20 AM
I've noticed this too, and if you think about it some more it's clear that it's not just the Bio section that is like this, but the entire manuscript. The bifolios were never intended to be nested within one another. Each one was intended to stand alone as its own "quire".
I don't know whether that was a normal practice for medieval books or not. I imagine that it would be more difficult to bind such a book, which is probably the main reason why the VMS pages are not bound in the correct order.
ReneZ > 31-03-2016, 10:10 AM
(31-03-2016, 09:20 AM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I've noticed this too, and if you think about it some more it's clear that it's not just the Bio section that is like this, but the entire manuscript. The bifolios were never intended to be nested within one another. Each one was intended to stand alone as its own "quire".
However not for the three pharma bifolios, judging from the containers.
The two nested bifolios 99-102 and 100-101 seem to be organised correctly. The only minor inconsistency is, that the first one on 99v has been drawn a bit more elaborately and could have been meant to be the first one, but there is no way to reorganise thefolios to make this work.
Most importantly, the transition from one style (2 or 3 cylindrical segments with diameters reducing from bottom to top) to another one (including narrow and tapered sections) occurs in the course of folio 102 (from recto to verso).
It continues that way on 88 recto, and here immediately (after the first one) another common change happens: from the second one onwards, all containers have lids. Before that, none of them has.
One other feature, whether they have feet or not, is alternating, though there are no feet on fols 100 and 101.
(Maybe someone is interested in doing some folding experiments and figure out the most logical total arrangement).
The main points is, however, that there is a continuous progression and the main changes do not happen on bifolio boundaries.
MarcoP > 31-03-2016, 10:42 AM
Thank you David!
I greatly appreciate your clear exposition and the visual support for what you discuss.
I hope you will find the time to make experiments with the pharma section too, as proposed by Rene.
Helmut Winkler > 31-03-2016, 10:50 AM
I am of the same opinion. I think to accept the fact that the ms. started life as a pile of notes and was at some time bound together for the same reason we put documents into a filing folder or ring binder would explain a lot of phenomena and make our life much easier.
Like Rene and Marco I'd also be very interested to see what the "pharma" section would have looked like in its original order. Like many others suggested, I wouldn't be surprised if it works as a pile of foldouts + bifolios rather than a real "book format".
david > 31-03-2016, 11:23 AM
Quote: Furthermore, even in the scenario you describe, there must be a first bifolio to the "balneo section", and therefore ordering is not moot at all.
I did not meant that the original ordering is not moot - our proposed reordering may be.
If you accept that all of these bifolios work as standalone sheets, then unfortunately the argument that 78-81 "must" be the centrefold because of the connecting baths no longer holds water (ah hem), because all of the bifolios are like that.
There may very well be an original order the bifolios are supposed to go in, but it is no longer apparant from the visual clues, which actually lead down a different trail.
(31-03-2016, 09:20 AM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I don't know whether that was a normal practice for medieval books or not. I imagine that it would be more difficult to bind such a book, which is probably the main reason why the VMS pages are not bound in the correct order.
No it isn't. Scribes were aware of how bifolios fitted together and would write accordingly, in the same way today's newspaper editors are.
Rene: Yes, there is at first glance (haven't really looked that hard at it) a logical progression of folios as you mention. But that logical procession is lacking in Q13.
(30-03-2016, 10:39 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. [quote pid='2811' dateline='1459365625']
Or, we swop the bifolio around the 76r becomes the final page with all the notes. We just can't tell, we can only guess.
Frankly, I'm almost at the point where I would suggest that the folios were "standalone". They're like a collection of... I don't know, wall charts on the same topic that someone has gathered up and bound together. Imagine an Englishman had a collection of classic car posters, and an African tribesman found them, not understanding them but liking them, bound them together into a book.......

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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First impression of eFootball PES 2020
2019-07-02 09:16:58 by El Fenomeno 0 comment 0 like 0 like
We are so used to the buzzwords and advertising terms that publishers use to encourage the fresh characteristics that come to their annual sports matches— particularly football games— that we often seem to have pointed them out before, and as such we rarely trust their alleged meaning. And the same can be said about advice from the real athletes-have we ever felt their input in the final product? Keeping this in mind, we were looking forward to perhaps finding something fresh and outstanding when we grabbed the controller with the PES this year ahead of our moment.
That being said, one beneficial thing about Konami and Pro Evolution Soccer is that we generally end up noticing a smoother, more natural reaction to our inputs every year, even though we totally disregard these PR buzzwords. It's almost as if the Japanese developer's intentions were impressed by the' tiki-taka' philosophy used by premium partner FC Barcelona. Season after season, PES provided the very finest gameplay, and this moment during our first contact with eFootball PES 2020, we again felt that natural touch in Los Angeles. Does the advice given by Iniesta and the introduction of' finesse dribbling' have a major effect?
Again, we noticed better player responses as well as a more defined individual identity for top players. Thanks to the new smooth movement scheme, they appear to be acting in a more credible manner, making play passages more fluid and linked. Their passes felt less stiff than last year, and they were a little more compelling in their turns and runs. Once again, the ball is the protagonist, and it was treated in Tokyo with the same love that Oliver Atom inspired Iniesta back in the day.
The graphics enhancement enables as well. We are especially pleased with the improved lighting engine, which now makes it comparable to ambient occlusion for better shadows and a filler impact. This way it feels more realistic, with components that look like they were genuinely put on the pitch. The turf you are playing on has been enhanced as well. This is without mentioning the kits and how the shirts move along with player animations, with a model of clothing for which PES has been crying out and which appears to catch up with the players and their animations' already quality graphics.
We played a few games in the E3 demo with two of the available teams. Barça was featured along with Messi (as the fresh cover star), Iniesta (consultant and legend), Ronaldinho (also showing off his own legendary abilities), and even Johan Cruyff (introducing Master League Legendary Coaches with Maradona). Their opponents were the PES Legend Team, and since this player collection would only be playable in LA, we immediately captured them in our bid to be unstoppable. Just look at the line-up:
Between the articles, Oliver Kahn formed the back line with Matthäus, Vieira, Nevdéd, and Nakata. Andrés Iniesta, David Beckham, and Francesco Totti were sitting in the midfield, and Ronaldinho's magic was playing alongside Park Ji Sung and Batistuta as number nine on the front. Whether anyone can assemble such a Dream Team on myClub in PES 2020, we don't understand, but it was enough to make us dream for a brief while.
They could do little against our squad for the centuries, as well-recreated as were Ter Stegen, Piqué, Alba, Roberto, Messi, and Coutinho. Batistuta was our absolute killer, scoring from time to time, but Iniesta had some of his classic goals as well. In reality, we took the opportunity to touch the correct stick with both Iniesta and Ronaldinho to attempt the' finesse dribble' and the players ' response was a joy to watch. If you cancel a shot (Square) or play a high ball (Circle) by pressing Triangle right before hitting the ball, you can tease your opponent even more, turning your move into an unexpected pass (as long as you nail the timing, of course). Finally, we couldn't attempt Inspire, but this characteristic of the player enables teammates to benefit from the inspirational star. With so many fresh combinations of attacks and opportunities, we will have to see how simple it is to protect against true players ...
Another welcome change is the fresh menus and finally a refreshed on-screen UI. After the fresh eFootball PES 2020 branding, everything is now purple-colored in a very smooth comparison to the green. The displays are minimalist, and the design lastly looks like it belongs to this console generation with large buttons and clearer text. In addition, the scoreboards and graphics in the game are also TV-like, which is completely in line with the fresh and realistic camera angle of' live broadcast.'
So we left our first meeting with PES 2020 quite happy after scoring a lot of objectives with the Legend Team, having had just about the most fun we had at E3 up to that stage. A more sophisticated build will arrive in the demo on July 30 so that for the first moment in a demo, you can all play it for yourself. Taking into account our impressions and if they can get rid of any trace of potential' scripting' in the final product when it is released in September, we are not worried about gameplay. However, when we attempt to find out if eFootball PES 2020 will be able to grow beyond the boundaries of the present, enthusiastic fan group of the game, we will have to evaluate how it evolves in terms of both matchmaking and licensing compared to its predecessor.
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El Fenomeno
A lovely member on PES Social
PES 2019 [email protected] 1.6.01 - Compatible with all patches (UNOFFICIAL VERSION)
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A new breakthrough for you Playstation 3 users, especially the latest OFW series, this time has succeeded in Xploit by installing Hybrid Firmware 4.84 or HFW4.84 .
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Q: how to write a function in chaincode that simply count the total records and return total number.hyperledger fabric For example, we have a bank record, we use a query to get all the bank's record, I just wanted to create a function who simply return the total bank record and return number only

A: Do you mean the total number of records in CouchDB or just a particular type of record?
Anyhow, I'll propose solutions for both assuming you're using CouchDB as your state DB.
Reading the total number of records present in CouchDB from chaincode will just be a big overhead. You can simply make a GET API call like this http://couchdb.server.com/mydatabase and you'd get a JSON back looking something like this:
{
 "db_name":"mydatabase",
 "update_seq":"2786-g1AAAAFreJzLYWBg4MhgTmEQTM4vTc5ISXLIyU9OzMnILy7JAUoxJTIkyf___z8riYGB0RuPuiQFIJlkD1Naik-pA0hpPExpDj6lCSCl9TClwXiU5rEASYYGIAVUPR-sPJqg8gUQ5fvBygMIKj8AUX4frDyOoPIHEOUQt0dlAQB32XIg",
 "sizes":{
    "file":13407816,
    "external":3760750,
    "active":4059261
 },
 "purge_seq":0,
 "other": {
    "data_size":3760750
 },
 "doc_del_count":0,
 "doc_count":2786,
 "disk_size":13407816,
 "disk_format_version":6,
 "data_size":4059261,
 "compact_running":false,
 "instance_start_time":"0"
}

From here, you can simply read the doc_count value.
However, if you want to read the total number of docs in chaincode, then I should mention that it'll be a very costly operation and you might get a timeout error if the number of records is very high. For a particular type of record, you can use Couchdb selector syntax.
If you want to read all the records, then you can use getStateByRange(startKey, endKey) method and count all the records.

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MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE -- "2022 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" -- Pictured: Mariah Carey -- (Photo by: Cara Howe/NBC via Getty Images)
Mariah Carey accessorizes with umbrella from Louisiana business 'Bella Umbrella' in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
by: Kenny Lopez
Posted: Nov 28, 2022 / 11:54 AM CST
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Trombone Shorty performing aboard Louisiana's 'Celebration Gator' float wowed the world with the smooth sounds of New Orleans during the Macy's Parade, but he's not the only piece of the Big Easy that made an appearance in the Big Apple on Thanksgiving Day!
Pop Superstar Mariah Carey appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and one of her beautiful accessories came to the Big Apple from right here in the Big Easy!
The "Celebration Gator" rolls in Macy's Thanksgiving Parade
The self-proclaimed "Queen of Christmas," performed her 1994 holiday hit "All I Want for Christmas is You" alongside her 11-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe in a custom-made Christian Siriano mermaid gown, but did you notice Mariah's umbrella that she was holding in the nationally-televised parade?
Bella Umbrella's owner confirmed that the umbrella that Mariah accessorized with was a design from her shop on Magazine Street in New Orleans.
KLFY Daily Digest
In a 'Bella Umbrella' Instagram post, it reads: "Nothing short of a dream come true to create a custom Bella Umbrella not only for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but for it to be adorned by the megastar Mariah Carey. It is all we wanted for Christmas and then some."
Bella Umbrella is located at 2036 Magazine Street, in New Orleans.
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Cord Cutting & Streaming
What Is IMAX Enhanced?
@gauravshukla
Nov 19, 2021, 8:00 am EST | 3 min read
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Being IMAX Enhanced means a device meets certain performance standards set by IMAX and DTS. The devices are tested for resolution, color, brightness, contrast, viewing mode, and sonic fidelity. Thus guaranteeing the consumers that if they pick a TV or AVR marked IMAX Enhanced, they're sure to get the best experience for IMAX content.
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CNC router table for $600
Monday, December 1, 2008, 12:26 AM - Robotics
The Probotix Fireball V90 CNC router goes for $600. Okay, for $600 you only get the mechanical part, not the stepper motors nor the controller boards. Still, it's pretty cheap. Add $300 to $400 for a 3 axis kit, and you are all set.
Pixhawk: Beagleboard-based UAV autopilot at ETHZ
Sunday, November 30, 2008, 01:22 PM - Robotics
While we are on the topic of the Beagleboard, it is worth mentioning that a group at ETH in Zurich is working on a micro-UAV autopilot project based on the Beagleboard called the Pixhawk. The main difference with most other open source autopilot projects is that this one will include a camera and a vision system. The beagleboard OMAP processor is powerful enough for simple vision algorithms (the alternative being the Blackfin processor).
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Make Magazine's definitive guide to open source hardware
Sunday, November 30, 2008, 01:11 PM - Electronics
Make Magazine's blog has a great list of opne source hardware projects for 2008. The list includes most flavors of Arduinos (although not the stickduino, that we mentioned before), as well as various UAV autopilots, synths, and other projects.
Perhaps it is worth reminding our esteemed readers of the existence of the Beagleboard, a $150 board available from Digikey with a super-powerful OMAP3530 chip from Texas Instruments. The OMAP contains a super-scalar 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 core and a 430MHz TMS320C64x+ DSP. The Beagleboard can run Linux.
Lady Ada's Xbee carrier board and tutorial
Sunday, November 9, 2008, 09:15 AM - Electronics
Lady Ada from Adafruit Industries has a nicely detailed tutorial on configuring a pair of Xbee wireless modules to talk wirelessly to an Arduino. It is an expanded version of another tutorial by Rob Faludi, a researcher in the Interactive Telecommunication Program at NYU
Adafruit conveniently sells (for $10) an Xbee carrier board which contains the level shifters, voltage regulator, and pin headers required to easily talk to an Xbee.
Using an Xbee for R/C
Saturday, November 8, 2008, 11:33 PM - Electronics
Effet de Bord is a French blog (written in English) that talks about using an Xbee module as the basis of an R/C system. Xbee Pro modules establish a bidirectional serial communication link with a range of roughly 1.5 km.
The blog is connected to the O24RCP project whose purpose is to build an open design for a 2.4GHz R/C system out of off-the-shelf components (such as the Xbee).
Jump Jet quadrocopter available at Hammacher-Schlemmer
Thursday, November 6, 2008, 07:10 PM - Flying Contraptions
The Jump Jet quadrocopter that we mentioned early October is available in the US for $120 at Hammacher Schlemmer.
They also have the Flying Saucer quadrocopter for $80.
Kyosho 4-channel Minium AD: Piper Cherokee and Micro Heli
Friday, October 24, 2008, 01:30 AM - Flying Contraptions
Kyosho has been distributing the Minium series of micro-R/C aiplanes for a while. The Minium series combine a 410mm wingspan micro-R/C airplane, with a 3-channel 2.4GHz radio at a low price.
The new Piper Cherokee Minium has 4 channels (with ailerons!) with a 410mm wingspan and a mass of 26 grams. Availability is announced for November on the Kyosho web site.
There is also a Minium AD micro-heli, which is a 200mm rotor, 30 gram, full-function heli with 4-channel control.
The Kyosho America online store has the Piper and the heli on pre-order for $180, with delivery in late November. Strangely, some other US retailer has the Cherokee available on pre-order for $170 with expected delivery in late January 2009....
The YouTube video below shows other Minimum planes, some of which don't seem to have been announced.
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How parrots fly: rotating feathers
I was watching an amazing set of slow motion movies and pictures of parrots in flight, and suddenly realized why birds have feathers. I've always thought feathers were a kind of kludge, an accident of evolution. But the videos clearly show the advantage of feathers. The large feathers at the trailing edge of a parrot's wing are flat and overlap slightly, forming a solid trailing edge on the down stroke, like the blades of a closed venetian blind. But in the up stroke, they rotate in such a way that they slice through the ambient airflow. The trailing edge now looks like open venetian blinds. The drag in the upswing is therefore considerably less than the thrust in the upswing. I'm guessing this effect is more pronounced in slow flight where the wings are moved forward in the down stroke and back in the upstroke so as to create more lifts at slower air speed. It's the equivalent of flaps in an airplane. It's a neat trick. None of the R/C ornithopters do this.
Your next flying contraption made of buckypaper?
Monday, October 20, 2008, 02:03 AM - Flying Contraptions
Buckypaper is a thin "paper" made of carbon nanotubes. It will be a while before it becomes widely available (at a reasonable price), but someday, your ultralight/ultrastrong micro-RC flying contraption might be made of buckypaper.
Buckypaper is being developed at the High-Performance Materials Institute at Florida State University. It is 10 times lighter than steel and, in theory (not yet in practice), 250 times stronger.
R/C fish blimp: peaceful
Friday, October 17, 2008, 04:47 PM - Flying Contraptions
Bertrand pointed us to this nice video of an R/C "flying fish". It's a blimp
with an oscillating tail for propulsion and fins
for directional control. Peaceful.
Air Art from flip on Vimeo
It is reminiscent of the Festo Manta Ray blimp that appeared a while ago.
Minoru 3D webcam
Thursday, October 16, 2008, 04:04 PM - Misc TechnoToys
The Minoru3D Webcam is a stereo webcam soon to be released by its British manufacturer. The website is a single front page with almost no information, beside a few pictures and the address of a marketing company Promotion and Display Technology Ltd. The big questions are the price and the date of availability.
Another British company Nvela, which is sponsored by the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge, UK, has produced a stereo webcam called the Hydra, but at 300 pounds ($600) it's way too expensive, and (so far) their SDK is for Windows only. They have been promising versions for Linux and Mac, but since the SDK was developed by Microsoft Research, I wouldn't hold my breath.
CNC machine using modified R/C servos
Thursday, October 2, 2008, 06:33 PM - Robotics
There is a new Instructable describing an XY table CNC machine that uses modified hobby servos. Apparently, they simply replaced the regular potentiometers in the servo by 10-turn pots.
The authors indicate that ServoCity sells Hitec HS-6965HS digital servo with the pot already modified for continuous rotation (with the pot hanging outside the case).
Slew of VTOL/quadrocopters from Alien Tech Ltd
Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 08:57 AM - Flying Contraptions
Hong Kong manufacturer Alien Technology Ltd has a whole series of low-cost micro R/C VTOL contraptions. They are behind the 20cm quadrocopter that we mentioned earlier.
They came out with a new micro quadrocopter called the Jump Jet, with a 34cm wingspan, a mass of 65 grams, and infrared control. The rotors are titled off the vertical axis in opposite pairs, so as to create a torque for better yaw control.
The Jump Jet was actually designed by UK designer Phil Jermyn, and is commercialized worldwide by UK company Snelflight. Snelflights sells the Jump Jet for 65 pounds (about $130 or 90 Euros). Wowzzers in the US claims they will have it around October 10 for $130.
There is a nice video of the Jump Jet on YouTube.
Snelflight has links to other user videos, as well a link to the user manual (PDF).
Alien's secret seems to be that they found a supplier of super cheap gyro sensors (ST Micros?), which allows them to price a flying contraption with a 3-axis gyro for less than $100, such as their 20cm quadrocopter.
(Thanks to Bertrand for the tip).
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For more information, call the Renton Senior Activity Center at 425-430-6633 | 13 Blood Pressure Retired nurses volunteer their time to keep you healthy by mon- itoring your blood pressure. Closed November 23. Thursdays 9:30–11:30am NR Clutter Buster Support Group Clutter Busters is a support group for hoarders, clutterers and cre- ative messy people. If you have too much 'stuff,' Clutter Buster meetings will offer a way to help you get in control of your living space. This is not a class, we use a support group format. Using a self-help book study method, you will gain insight and motivation toward overcoming hoarding and disorganization. Members are encouraged to share recent efforts to overcome clutter and hoarding in a confi- dential, non-judgmental and supportive a t m o s p h e r e . Fa c i l i t a te d b y Ke i t h Collingwood. No meetings Nov 10, 24. Fridays 9:30–11:00am SMTG Foot Care We have foot care service for people who cannot manage their own foot care. Karen's Foot Care Services specializes in gentle foot care service for senior cit- izens. Call the Renton Senior Activity Center foot care line at 425-430-6662 to schedule a Wednesday appointment. The cost is $27. Wednesdays By Appointment NR $27 WELLNESS NUTRITION Senior Nutrition Program The purpose of the Congregate Hot Lunch Program is to provide nutritious meals in a group setting, encourage social interaction, reduce isolation, and to make support services available to senior citizens age 60 and older. A meal that provides a third of daily nutritional needs is served at 11:30 am. For individuals 60 years and older, a sug- gested donation of $4 helps cover the cost of the meal. No eligible senior age 60 or older will be denied a meal if unable to donate. For individuals younger than 60 years old, the charge is $10. Closed Nov 10, 23, 24, Dec 25 and 26. Please try to have correct change, as we are not always able to make change. NOTE: The dining room op ens at 10:30 am for reservations and tickets. Groups of five or more must make res- ervations by Monday the week prior to their visit. On your first visit, complete the Congregate Nutrition Participant Information form, and return it to the Nutrition Office. This site is provided by Sound Generations. For informa- tion or reservations, call 425-254-1128, between 9:00 am–1:00 pm. Meals On Wheels For the homebound seniors, frozen Meals-On-Wheels may be delivered upon request. For more information, call 206-448-5767. Free Drug Disposal Kiosk in the Police Lobby, City Hall We all have unwanted and leftover medications in our cabinets. Now the city is providing a way to dis- pose of them. They can be deposited for free in a kiosk in the police lobby of city hall between Mon–Fri, 7:30am–5:30pm. The kiosk accepts bot- tles up to 6 inches in diameter x 12 inches tall. Hearing Loss Association of America - Renton This hearing loss groups helps inform, educate and suppor t individuals with hearing loss. Fri Oct 13, Nov 3, Dec 8 12:15–1:30pm NR LGBTQ Support Group It is important that all people feel comfortable, welcome and safe in their environment. A newly formed group will address issues while providing support and information that may be unique to the LGBTQ community. Topics of discussion may be legal issues, hous- ing, me dical ne e ds, b ereavement, acceptance and other topics of your choice. Members of the group are encouraged to invite presenters on issues important to you. Group meets on the last Wednesday of every month. Wed Oct 25, Nov 29, Dec 27 10am–12pm SS Widowed Information and Consultation Service (WICS) Grieving and recovering individuals often find comfort in talking with others who have had a similar experience. WICS groups are a place where men and women can share feelings and concerns. The group meets every Wednesday. Wednesdays 12:30–2:30pm SS Donation Flu Vaccination Clinic: Oct 26 A team of Walgreens pharmacists and staff will be here to administer the current flu vaccine. Please bring your Medicare card / information and complete the vaccination form and they will administer your vacci- nation. Save the hassle of going to a clinic or pharmacy! Thur Oct 26 10:00am–2:00pm NR Free with Medicare card Dental Services We are so excited to be partnering with Health Smiles, Inc. to provide low-cost dental services to you. A licensed Dental Hygienist will be here once a month to provide dental assessments, routine dental clean- ings, oral cancer screenings, fluoride treatments and referrals to local den- tists and specialists. To make an appointment, please call Healthy Smiles, Inc., 206-650-3272.


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Gartner Cool Vendor
Anerkennung durch Marktführer
Marken-Materialien
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Omnichannel conversational platform
Virtual team
Anlass Kalender
Voice banking
Solution for overload contact centre
Publication detail:
Brian Martin UK & Ireland Regional Director, Spitch
Enforcing MiFID II: the benefits of enterprise speech solutions
Research from Timico found that, as late as December 2017, 39% of financial firms in the UK were unaware whether their organisation was compliant with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II). Now that it's 2018, and the deadline (3 January 2018) has been passed, it would be interesting to know how many organisations have actually made inroads to understand and achieve MiFID II compliance.
If it's not already on your to-do list, then it really should be. MiFID II's express aim is to fundamentally alter the behaviour, structure and transparency of financial markets. The legislation seeks to provide investors with clarity of all expected point-of-sale costs and charges, including the impact on investor returns.
It affects all financial institutions that deal with voice communications, meaning they should be aware of the radical and far-reaching changes MiFID II now requires around voice record-keeping and discoverability.
Crucially, the penalties for failing to comply are severe, with businesses facing fines of up to €5 million or 10% of annual turnover. And with the legislation already in effect, regulators will be looking to make examples of those who fail to comply. No organisation wants to be the first to fall afoul of a fine of that size.
Consequently, financial institutions should be looking to identify where they are not compliant and find immediate remedies that can be implemented rapidly. Luckily, there are technology innovations formulated with MIFID II in mind can reduce the time and complexity of regulatory compliance.
Where speech-to-text can help
Now that MiFID II is in place, financial service firms have new requirements when it comes to recording and storing calls (both landline and mobile) as well as email, social media and SMS communications. Firms must now keep records of these interactions for a minimum of five years – whether they resulted in a transaction or provision of services or not. And, crucially, the regulation calls for greater rigour in the storage and discoverability of all this data – all records must be stored in a durable and easily accessible format. So, unless you became MiFID II compliant before the deadline, it's unlikely your organisation will have the capabilities to record and store data in this way. Prior to now, businesses rarely had a reason to keep call data for as much as seven years.
This is where speech-to-text platforms can help. The technology rapidly and accurately converts any recorded call into an easily-searchable text format. Not only does this make it easier to store and discover call information, but it makes the data much easier to investigate, as the regulation requires.
MiFID II places an incredible burden on financial institutions to analyse thousands of conversations, featuring multiple parties communicating across numerous mediums over a long period of time. But with speech-to-text solutions, time consuming manual analysis of call information can be dramatically reduced. A mixture of keyword spotting and trend identification be used to detect high risk calls that should be flagged to security officers for further action. And, as the process is carried out automatically and algorithmically, call review times will be drastically reduced to the point that 100% of conversations can be analysed, instead of just a handful.
It's time to act
If you haven't yet become MiFID II compliant, then you've already left it too late. With the regulation in effect, it's only a matter of time before a financial services institution is handed down a huge fine for non-compliance.
Speech-to-text solutions can help you meet the requirements of MiFID II and avoid such a fate. What's more, they are quick to implement and customise to the specific needs of your business. At this point, it shouldn't be a case of when you can make the changes, but how fast.
To learn more about Spitch's voice-to-text solutions, get in touch.
Publish date: 31.01.2018
Veröffentlichungen (English):
Will voice end the era of touch in banking? The financial industry should listen up and recognize voice technology and the opportunities that come with it. As with other innovations, the retail industry is paving the way.
Banking on technology: How challenger banks set new standards for customer service Innovation is often high up on the agenda in the banking industry, but for digitally native challenger banks, it's a way of life. They were borne from innovation and continue to push the envelope and carve out new ways of engaging consumers, made possible by fewer overheads tied up in retail space and a smaller but more dynamic workforce.
Spitch's robo-bankers are learning Swiss German! For the fourth edition of the Fintech Chain Mail, we met with Alexey Popov – CEO at SPITCH to discuss Natural Language Processing, a form of artificial intelligence that extracts data and insight from speech.
Bernd Martin: "Banken sollten fortlaufende Spracherkennung als sicherstes biometrisches Merkmal zur Kundenauthentifizierung ins Online-Banking als Standard aufnehmen." Vor rund einem Jahr ist die Europäische Zahlungsdienstrichtlinie PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) in Kraft getreten, die beim Online-Banking eine doppelte Kundenauthentifizierung vorschreibt.
Pflegeroboter versteht Schweizerdeutsch Das Personal in Pflegeheimen und Spitälern wird demnächst von einem Roboter unterstützt, der Schweizerdeutsch versteht. Dafür spannen zwei Schweizer Technologieanbieter zusammen.
Anlass Kalender:
A successful digitalisation process in the contact centre
Will voice end the era of touch in banking?
Partner von Spitch implementiert virtuellen Assistenten für die Verwaltung von Arztterminen
Spitch Voice Technologies für IVO, DAb Distributori virtueller BOT erstellt von Sistem-Evo
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info@spitch.ch
Spitch
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Speech Transcription
Sprachlösungen für Unternehmen
Die vorteile der biometrischen identifizierung
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One of the things that really got under my skin as a Sales Manager, were the salespeople WHO THOUGHT IT WAS OK NOT TO PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL. Their note taking was lousy, record keeping almost non-existent and follow-up was a thing they had to do rather than a vital sales exercise to ensure the total sales process was tracked and followed explicitly.
I've even seen sales clerks and other back-up staff not take notes, or diarise important in-coming phone calls, or at other times, forget to inform the salesperson one of their prospect called while they were out. Sometimes those prospects were even wanting to place an order with the company, yet were stifled by uncaring people that should have known better.
I've even consulted with companies where the Sales Manager, or business proprietor, were the main offenders and would forget things, then pass them onto the salesperson a few days later because they didn't take notes or keep records, but relied on their memory alone. Unfortunately most of the prospects had gone cold by then, or had bought elsewhere.
Here's a word of warning to salespeople, managers, supervisors and support staff. If you tend to skim over details because you're busy with other things and just don't have the time to do things to the letter. You'll create problems that may lose you a valuable client.
If you're a salesperson or a manager that thinks you can shortcut your presentation because you've done it so many times before that you're bored with it, you'll also lose sales.
The professionals I know think of every presentation as an opportunity to create a new client, or to build on with an existing client. They know that every presentation is a new to their prospect and treat it with respect. Very few would do the same presentation the same way twice.
A dear friend of mine, Brian Price, recently departed, once told me that in over 40 years of selling he believes he had never presented the same product the same way to two different prospects. And his closing ratio was awesome – right up to the time of his death.
I know I wouldn't pay him good money to advise me after reading that rubbish. I've always been taught, and go out of my way to teach others, that a presentation is not an ad-hock thing, it's everything to the seller and the prospect alike.
Salespeople should respect their prospect enough to do the necessary homework before they present to give themselves every chance to sell the prospect, and to also give the prospect every chance to buy.
To do everything you do with enthusiasm and without shortcuts also carries over to your paperwork and ability to handle a computer – if your records are kept there and your orders are entered that way.
Any missing information could cause your newly acquired clients to quickly lose faith in their decision and cancel the order.
Then if you or your company don't have the practices and policies in place to properly care for the expectations of your clients and prospects, you'll generally find yourself working harder and harder to get new business. If that's the environment you work in, then you become the benchmark the company needs to adopt. And they will, simply because your clients will expect the same standard from them. You become the one that invests some time and effort in laying out procedures that can be standardized and followed by everyone who works with you, and present this to your superiors if you need to.
Salespeople shouldn't promise anything above or beyond the company standard – and at times need to question company standards if they don't change for the better over time. Then once a new standard is set, everyone should be expected to meet it, or exceed it.
The highway on which a sale is usually built is wide indeed. If it wasn't, very few would ever close a sale, and the prospect is extremely forgiving – too forgiving most of the time.
Just think back to the calls you made where you believe you didn't deserve the sale, but your prospect's bought anyway. Prospects forgive everything except a wandering presentation. If you can't stay on track, you shouldn't be trying to sell.
As a salesperson, you need to stay in control of every aspect of the sales process? Do you a script for your telephone prospecting; do you have a realistic formula that's is adaptable in most circumstances for your on-road prospecting; do you have a carefully planned process for your presentations; and do you have an on-going way of ensuring your call-backs and follow-ups are effective. If you do, do you use them? And if you don't, why don't you?
Checking to see if you're on track only takes a few moments, yet, it's one of the simplest ways to help you pin-point everything that needs attention. Once this is in place, whatever you do it's likely you stay on track – and remain on track.
This Article is by Peter Collins – In a sales career spanning more than 50 years, Peter Collins has focused on helping and bringing out the best in others – whether it involves training or mentoring salespeople, managers, business consulting to SME's. Since the 1970's Peter has built a reputation as a Nationally and Internationally Published author, and of the 130 books he has written over the past 48 years, Peter has 65 Business Books to his credit, (but he is mainly known for one book based on the Audio Tape series of the same name, Over 50 Ways of Closing the Sale). Peter also has written 23 Christian books. One of Peter's books sold almost 2 million copies in the late 1970's and is still selling well through second hand online marketers worldwide. In his personal life, Peter has been sought after as an encourager and motivator that has given of his time and talents freely despite his busy schedule. Subsequently, he has assisted churches, pastors, community and charity groups, as well as individuals through his teaching, training, development and on-going mentoring.
© Copyright Peter Collins, Profit Maker Sales, Sydney, Australia, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2015, all rights reserved.


Hi, I'm a student from the College of Letters & Science at University of California, Berkeley. Currently freelancing in coding and design, with an interest in creating interactive experiences.
Sept – DecSessions: COMPSCI 61A/B & 98/198 Weekly tutorial on COMPSCI 61A: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs & COMPSCI 61B: Data Structures at University of California, Berkeley. Extended notes on lecture materials from COMPSCI 98/198: Web Design DeCal.
Janelectron-osx-sign Codesigning tool for macOS distribution of apps created with GitHub Electron Implemented with Node.js, distributed through npm.
DecRecursive Rhapsody Multithreaded 3D raytracer implemented in Scheme with Lambertian and Phong shading models Final artwork was rendered with 5 maximum bounces on 52 spheres lit by 3 point lights.
June 2019 – Aug 2019GPU Developer Tools Intern Incoming summer intern.
May 2018 – Aug 2018Desktop Software Engineering Intern Worked on several diagnostic features for the Slack desktop app. Led the design and implementation for a new desktop client updater server endpoint. Added full integration test suites to the CI automation in QA environment. Implemented content security violation reporting for the web client. Wrote the netLog module in Electron.
Jun 2017 – May 2018Teaching Assistant Maintained and updated the course portal implemented in Django. Winter 2017, added a real time Q&A queue to be used in lecture. Summer 2017, updated course info website and a project showcase site displaying works done by previous students.
Jan 2019 – NowTeaching Assistant Hold weekly sections & office hours and help develop course materials.
Feb 2017 – May 2017Research Assistant Teamed with Ph.D. candidate Juliana Friend from the Department of Anthropology to design and develop the Many-to-Many project website, offering an online platform to facilitate ethnographic research. Designed and implemented a multilingual CMS with content versioning, a custom front-end MVP, and a RESTful server with LAMP for data query and mutation.
Oct 2016 – NowVolunteer for International Programs Assisted social event programming such as the monthly iMixes, as a space for students to mix and mingle. In 2016, teamed with other volunteers and held a pumpkin carving contest. Helped migrate Berkeley International Office website to the new Open Berkeley platform based on Drupal. Designed logo and banner for the Resilience project.
Jan 2017 – May 2017Academic Intern Held weekly office hours to help students, who took COMPSCI 61A in Spring 2017, better understand the course materials.
Oct 2016 – NowStudent Ambassador for the Arts Committee Manager for Students' Night Out since September 2017. Hold post-performance reception events such as SpeakEasies for audience to mingle and to share thoughts about the show. Promote Cal Performances events through physical presence or social media on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Nov 2016 – Apr 2018Publicity Committee Member Designed brochure, flyers, posters and website with other members of the same committee.
Jun 2015 – NowFreelancing Programmer Communicated with client to deliver solutions for statistical analysis. Developed VBA Macro in Microsoft Excel.
Jul 2015Web Developer Intern Full-stack developer on website for Dulwich Science Art Photo Competition, annually held across 7 campuses. Back end implemented with LAMP. Created interactive gallery of photos from past and current events. Communicated with the marketing department to deliver feasible web solutions for photo submission.
Sept 2013 – Jun 2016Visual & Performing Arts Ambassador Communicated with other ambassadors within the department. Helped organize annual Arts festivals, designing and developing websites for event marketing. Graphic design for posters, brochures, and event backdrops.
Sept 2012 – Jun 2016Glee Club Member Communicated with members of the club on performances and rehearsals. Participated in vocal ensembles. Produced backing track for practice use.


"I tried for a really long time to be the guy that loves everyone… I have finally accepted that I will never be that person. I have always loved songs that poke fun at the human experience, mundane life styles, American culture. "Big Vacation" is a song about looking around you and feeling like everyone is trying to sell you something to make your life better, or more personalized or more convenient."
Run Forever have a full length album coming the fall, but in the meantime, check out their 3 song EP Big Vacation. They will also be playing on August 20th for WYEP's Local 913 Live. For more on Run Forever, visit their website.


Hungary is a country located in Central Europe. The official language is Hungarian. The largest city is Budapest.
Below is a selection of the best resources for searching for an apartment in Hungary.
Alberlet: Alberlet is chock full of apartment listings.
Iranymagyarorsza: You can find a list of apartment complexes here.
Craigslist: Pioneers in the internet classifieds space. These guys have tons of Budapest apartment options that are updated daily. Craigslist is the first place I would check after testing out the Hungary-specific search engines.
Just Landed: Check out this quick primer on housing and rentals in Hungary.
There you have it. The best places for finding an apartment in Hungary. If you are interested in working in this country, be sure to check out my article on how to find a job in Hungary as a foreigner. If you are single and are looking to spice up your dating life, check out my reviews of the best dating sites in Hungary. Enjoy your stay!


Barbara Gordon helped Batman in the fight against crime in Gotham City as Batgirl. It all changed when the Joker shot her in the spine (See The Killing Joke), paralyzing her from the waist down.
She was your guide in 'Batman Arkham Asylum' for the entire game and in 'Batman Arkham City' she comes in halfway when Batman becomes infected and is dying from the disease.
If you have the Catwoman DLC and get to the part where you can choose to save Batman or walk out with the loot, choosing to just take the loot will end the game and you will hear Oracle sending out a distress message.


text:
Q: The closure of $(f)$ for $f\in\Bbb C[x,y]$ irreducible. In Hartshorne Algebraic Geometry, there is this claim:

Let $f(x,y)\in\Bbb C[x,y]$ be irreducible and let $\eta=(f)\in \mathrm{Spec}(\Bbb C[x,y])$. Then the closure of $\{\eta\}$ consists of $\eta$ together with all closed points $(a,b)$ for which $f(a,b)=0$.

I don't get why this is true. We have that
$$\overline{\{\eta\}}=V(f)=\{p\in\mathrm{Spec}(\Bbb C[x,y]):f\in p\}.$$
Now clearly this set contains $\eta$ together with all maximal ideals $(x-a,y-a)$ such that $f(a,b)=0$. But what about the converse? If $f\in p$ and $p$ is prime and not equal to $(f)$, why would $p$ be maximal?


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